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This book is absolutely epic. One thousand and sixteen pages long, seven hundred and ninety-six of them prose. It was twenty years in the research and it shows but unfortunately the author died before he finished the book let alone saw it published. Where someone else took over I could not tell.

The subject matter is as abjectly horrific as the title suggests. So why did I read it? The prose. Absolutely outstanding and just exactly right. The right amount of scholarly authority without being dry, informal enough to maintain interest without losing respect and as matter of fact as is necessary without being dull. A very difficult thing to achieve, imho. Reading it feels like someone is telling you what happened. And what did happen!

It's taken me nine months and one week to finish this. I decided to break it up with other books in between and read this only on the weekend and as many pages as I could handle - at least one week there were none.

Still, I would recommend this, the prose is to be seen to be believed and the research painstaking and thorough, so much so that I get the impression that this book contains all you'd need to know on the subject. Take care though, it is distressing.